Whether or not the Northern Pass transmission line gets the state and federal permits it’s looking for, HydroQuebec is poised to send ever more of its hydro-power south. It’s increasingly clear that New England will need more power soon and with transmission lines are being proposed all around the Northeast, Canadian hydro is likely to play a role.

After a series of delays PSNH has announced a new route for its Northern Pass project.

The route follows a more easterly path than the original 2010 route and it includes nearly eight miles of underground wires. But this new route isn’t a done deal. State officials still have to approve a key element – putting those underground lines on public property.

The head of Sierra Club Canada says Hydro-Quebec power can’t be considered green. He was in Plymouth Tuesday night. NHPR’s Chris Jensen was there and has this report.

John Bennett is the executive director of Sierra Club Canada. He’s been watching and fighting big hydro-electric dam projects in Canada for decades.

And he told about 100 people at Plymouth State University – including opponents of the Northern Pass project – that the electricity Hydro-Quebec produces by flooding huge areas is not friendly to the environment.

In between the picnics and end-of-summer festivities a series of protests against the Northern Pass hydro-electric project were held throughout the state during the holiday.

NHPR’s Chris Jensen reports…

Easton was the site of one of a dozen or so protests from Manchester to Colebrook on Saturday.

Just under 100 people gathered on Gingerbread Lane along an existing right-of-way where the Northern Pass towers would cut through the tiny North Country town before heading south to cross the White Mountain National Forest.

The extremely low prices for natural gas – which can be used to generate electricity - have some opponents of Northern Pass wondering whether Hydro-Quebec might reconsider the project. But a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says that’s unlikely.